With inconclusiveness in Laura's eyes, the Commander rounded on Gaeta, making the Lieutenant stand tall even before his name was heard. "Gaeta," William said, before looking toward Gaius. "Help the Doctor. I want two to three hours downtime on the FTL and only two to three hours." William said, beginning to excuse himself from the meeting. As he started to walk to the door, a Marine opened it for him, and the Colonel swiftly joined him, so did Dualla. The others rose up and shuffled about, as well, with the President frowning at the meeting ending so abruptly.
William sighed as he walked down the halls of the ship with Saul. "How many fighters did we lose in that single fight?"
"Ah, twenty or so from our seventy five. But they lost way more than that." Saul tried to reason, but the Commander simply shook his head. "We're in deep into uncharted space. What's to say that was just a small smidgeon of their full force?"
"The Galactica can take on any of those flimsy little paper planes, sir. You know that." The Colonel tried again, but the Commander wasn't having any of it. "No... It can try, but it will never hold up against endless battle. I'm loathed to say it, my friend, but the sooner we get to talking with this Citadel Authority, the sooner we get one more tick off our back." He said, sighing deeply as he entered the CIC and pulled his glasses on.
The two men then stood at the command table, with William drumming his fingers over it. Looking over the battle reports, he then looked up at Saul. "But it doesn't mean we shouldn't be ready. How did Starbuck do?"
"Lieutenant Thrace did admirably well. Over a dozen bogies shot down with precision. So did the CAG, though a bit less than him. Why do you ask, sir?" Saul explained, holding aloft a few pictures taken from the dogfights between Citadel and Colonial forces. The Commander hummed, brushing his palm over one of the pictures.
"Can we simulate their flight patterns from the DRADIS and the Battle-Vids?" William asked, turning to Dualla, who seemed to be deep in thought before nodding. "It'll take some work, sir."
"How long?"
"Seven hours? I'll be half off the comms during that..."
"You'll be distracted. But we'll still have our best Comms Officer." William smiled at the girl, who smiled back, shyly, before he gave her a stern faced and commanding nod. "Get on it, Petty Officer."
"Aye, aye, sir." She saluted, before walking back up to her nest.
"With a simulation up, we can have the CAG running simulations and mock dogfights against the Citadel to better prepare our Vipers and Raptors against them." William explained, with Saul nodding along.
"Good idea. Make that twenty into a zero, for next time."
"Well, I hope there won't be a next time. Gods know we need allies more than friends when it comes to the real enemy."
Saul gave a thoughtful look at that, before shrugging. "Maybe we can use that." William arched an eyebrow, urging the Colonel to go on. The grouchy man leaned over the command table and spoke quietly to William. "I don't trust these aliens to deliver me food or anything, but maybe we can prove that the people we're running from are a bigger threat than us. Slip into their territory, lie low, leech off a few worlds while trying to find Earth and let the Citadel and Cylons duke it out."
The Commander sighed, taking off his glasses. "A pragmatic approach. But not one I'd take, or the President would allow, probably. Neither I or she would want to drop the Cylons on anyone, and then leave them to deal with the problem. If we're to instead convince them to help..."
"Well, we saw how well diplomacy worked last time, huh?"
Commander Adama then thought back to Desolas. The commander of the ship he, supposedly, destroyed. A thought ran across his mind, morbidly hoping the man (or whatever it was) had burned with it. "Miscommunication."
"Or blind alien rage."
"You don't know that, Colonel."
The Colonel leaned back from the command table and straightened his uniform. "Of course, sir. Shall I tend to the repairs of the decks hit with the enemy barrage, sir?"
"Aye, you're dismissed." With a crisp salute, William was left to his devices at the table...
"And I think..." Gaius said, muttering to himself. He then pressed enter, and raised his arms in a cheerful guffaw. "I have it!" He and the Lieutenant laughed and patted each other. William, noticing this and rising from the command table, walked up to the DRADIS nest. Before the Doctor, the DRADIS mainframe was calculating various numbers and graphical lines, super imposed on both Uncharted and Charted space.
"Err, Doctor?" The Lieutenant asked, and Gaius noticed that he wished to sit in his chair. "Ah, of course! Apologies, my friend." Gaius said with a charismatic smile, rising and awkwardly standing beside William, who stood like a wall. Saul soon walked up beside him, on the other end, fortunately for Baltar.
"Alright... Superimposing on know coordinates. Making some calculations. There." he points at the mainframe. "This, is us. Our approximate location according to Satellite imagery from Colonial Records on the grid and layout of the Milky Way." He waves his palm around and pokes his finger at a central, green dot on the Galaxy.
"Doctor Baltar was right, these are six coordinates. Considering our last coordinates, it seems this Station held some kind of FTL function that allowed ships to read these six coordinates and jump from the Station's point to them." He then waved his finger at six portruding lines from a red dot 'south' of the Galactica' position. Where the Station was, before.
William narrowed his eyes and leaned in, resting a hand on the back of Gaeta's chair. The six lines stretched far across the entire Galaxy. Some were shorter, like two that spread 'west', two others 'east', and four others in random directions to the north. The furthest due north-east, like someone drew a childish, long line across the Milky Way.
"And these six points are the coordinates?"
"Aye, aye, sir. These are the coordinates and where they may possibly lead." Gaeta leaned back, and Saul chuckled. "So the Station was some sort of gate, huh? You mean to tell me that the Citadel has that kind of FTL drive to jump -that- far? Getting here would take..." Saul mutter-growled the rest, waving his palm about after poking the farthest point, and Gaeta spoke for him.
"That would take a solid month of umps every two hours, yes."
"The amount of fuel we'd run just to get there..." William muttered, before Gaius spoke up.
"Of course, gentlemen, I have a theory..." All others turned to him. His beady eyes scanned their faces and he spoke again.
"Considering the Station from which we have gained these coordinates, theoretically, ahs the power to throw us that far..." He then peered down at the map, he shrugged. "Perhaps we could try it."
"Hell no." Saul said, almost instantly. "We're not going back there. Who knows how many Citadel aliens are there now, waiting for us to peek our heads out and blow us all sky high!"
William frowned, gritting his teeth, before looking down at the map. "And who's to say any of these coordinates will not put us down into a star system right on their doorstep?"
Everyone went silent, before Gaius sighed, clapping his hands together in a mock prayer. 'of course, just a suggestion. Either way, there's no telling what the radiological readings from the Station's core, as far as I saw them, could do to our own FTL drives."
"We could blow up, is that waht you're saying?" Saul asked, glaring at him.
"What? I didn't say that." Gaius awkwardly laughed, before his face grew grim. "It's a possibility..." He said, a grim face overtaking his visage.
